


Wherein Pike comes home

by kayliemalinza



Series: Rambleverse [10]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen, Kayliemalinza's Rambleverse, Pre-Academy Years (Rambleverse Timeline), Siblings, West Eckett (Rambleverse setting)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-04-09
Updated: 2010-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 03:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayliemalinza/pseuds/kayliemalinza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Pike comes home after a deep-space mission, it's a difficult re-entry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wherein Pike gets the coldest welcome ever

The front door of the West Eckett Animal Containment and Recovery Center has a sign taped to it that reads, "automatic door-opening mechanism malfunctioning; use manual lever" so Chris yanks on the handle, winces at the squeal of the hinges, and walks in.

"Be right with you!" a woman calls from the back room, then adds quietly to a person in there with her: "Yatto, I told you to oil the door _yesterday_."

"If I oil the door, we'll have to get one of those door chimes, and I hate 'em," Yatto answers. He sounds like he spends his spare time with his feet propped up on an upturned bucket with one hand around a beer and the other hand tossing peanut shells at the dogs.

Chris can't hear the woman's answer, if she gives one. He crosses his arms across his chest and looks around him. The waiting room is a pale utilitarian construction, shabby but clean, covered all over in scratch marks and informative posters. An overweight or overfluffed cat is sprawled on the front counter, picking burrs from between its toes. It pauses with one paw stuck up in the air and stares at Chris with gold, glassy eyes.

Chris stares back, adamant and non-blinking, until the cat withdraws its wayward limbs and disappears over the edge of the counter. The burnt-orange tip of its tail flicks at him in a salty goodbye and Chris smiles.

The woman in the back room murmurs something about supplementary paperwork and government permissions for inoculations. She appears in the doorway, looking away from Chris into the back room, and says sternly, "End of day tomorrow. Make sure she knows that. Hello, can I help—" She stops short and her face flickers through recognition, annoyance, relief, then back to annoyance (or maybe happiness. It's hard to tell.) Her shoulder wavers an inch from the doorframe, like she'd lean against it for support if no-one was looking.

"Hey," says Chris after the silence goes on a little while.

He can tell the moment when she decides on a plan of action. Her face relaxes into a pretension and her spine straightens up into the posture that comes from riding a horse before learning to walk. "Do you have an appointment?" she asks.

"Uh, no," says Chris. When she walks forward he's startled by the dullness of her hair. She was always sly as redheads go, more strawberry blonde than anything, but now it's more gray than there should be. Chris hopes it's just the overhead lights playing havoc with color.

"You didn't call ahead?" she says with put-upon lack of guile, sitting down at the computer terminal. "Let me just check our records. Name, please?" She's literally giving him the cold shoulder, curling herself inward sightly like he's about to jump the counter.

Which he might do, if this is how they're going to play it. "Elena—"

"Is that your name?" she asks.

Chris can see that she's pulled up some kind of administrative screen. "My name is Alouicious Bandersnout," he drawls, leaning one elbow on the counter.

Elena types in 'Christopher Pike' without comment and Chris determines that they've hit the point of no return. It's like riding out an ion storm: better to go at it full speed ahead than frazzle the engines in reverse. He rests his chin in his hand and prepares to take his beating quietly.

"Hmm," she says, cycling through a few screens in rapid succession. "According to the records we are currently boarding a horse for you, but it appears that the Center hasn't received a call from you in over six months."

"I understand that you have no experiential proof of this," Chris points out, "but space is actually very, very big."

"Oh gosh, I didn't know that." Elena isn't facing him but Chris doesn't need more than the arch of her eyebrow to understand that she's thinking, _Don't use that patronizing tone with me. I_ invented _that patronizing tone._

His voice is maybe warmer than the situation warrants when he replies, "When I say we're going out of communication range, we really are outside the range of feasible communication. I _could_ return your messages, but it'd take you five hundred years to get them."

"I didn't realize they'd moved Earth's moon to a different solar system," she answers frostily. "I hope those repairs went alright."

Chris realizes his tactical error and goes silent for a long moment. The _USS Forthright_ was only in dock for a day and a half but well within communications range for at least a week longer than that. Elena gets a copy of _Starfleet Gazette_ and she can put the pieces together.

"...can we take it as read that I apologize and beg profusely for forgiveness?" Chris asks.

"No," says Elena. "But we can take it as read that you're an asshole."

There's the sudden creak of a chair from the back room. Yatto has good hearing, apparently.

Elena winces like she'd forgotten he was back there and that worries Chris more than the stiff set of her shoulders or the deepening frown lines around her mouth. He wonders if the gazette reported more than _Forthright_ 's repair docket; there's a few missions from the past year that would spice up a publication if you didn't know anyone involved. Elena isn't one for hand-wringing but nevertheless, Chris doubts that she'll see the humor in the volcano story. She might have a laugh about the run-in with the Nausicaan pirates, though, if he tells it right. If she lets him.

He scowls and drags a hand roughly though his hair. "Can I see my horse?" he asks.

"Regrettably, your horse has moved out of communication range," she answers promptly.

He narrows his eyes. She swivels in her chair to face him, arms crossed, and matches him squint for squint. The freckles on her nose are a sad match for the ridges on the Klingon he kicked in the nads last month, but Chris has an odd disability. He can't stare down someone who used to tie his shoes for him and roll up the sleeves of his sweater (she also used to lock him in the closet, but that's beside the point.)

He doesn't like the way the battlefield is slanting. "I'll come back later," he says, and pushes himself up from the counter. He steels himself not to look at Elena's expression when he turns and walks out.


	2. Wherein Pike breaks and enters and interrogates a dog.

Chris jogs alongside the compound wall until it swerves suddenly, fusing to the side of an old-fashioned house. The house had work done: the front steps are now dura-plastic instead of warping wood and the second window from the left doesn't match. Its frame is some silver metal and the glass is smooth, not wavery and thicker at the bottom like the other windows. Behind the pane, though, are the same yellow curtains that have been there for years and that makes him smile.

He never particularly liked the curtains before, but ever since his mission ended Chris has been giddy about anything that doesn't look like a spaceship. (He has a nasty scrape along his elbow from climbing the first tree he saw after beaming down and regrets nothing.)

The security system on the front door looks new, too, but it accepts Chris' thumbprint readily enough. He steps inside, shuts the door behind him and asks, "Are you the secondary security system?"

The target of his inquiry is a Welsh Corgi. It's standing at the foot of the stairs, illuminated by the stretched-out square of sunshine from the window beside the door. There's a peeling scar on its flank and a plastic cone around its neck that crinkles when the dog whines and dip its head.

"Guess not," says Chris. He moves forward slowly, hand outstretched, but the Corgi spooks and limps up to the third step. Chris shrugs and lets it be; Elena will introduce them soon enough.

He moves on to the back of the house, making a few cataloguing glances. The paint everywhere looks freshened up and the floors are shinier than he remembers, maybe slicked with a stain named after some extinct tree.

The dining room has stacks of print-outs on the sideboard and a half-empty box of Danishes in the middle of the table so Chris assumes that the Center still uses it for administrative meetings. The living room is in a serviceable state of clutter: work boots in a pile by the doorway, a collection of mugs on the coffee table and a blanket draped over the corner of the sofa, as if something has just emerged from a cocoon and flown away.

There's a flash of blue protruding from underneath the sofa that turns out to be a plush Andorian with a wisp of stuffing where the left ear stalk used to be. The Corgi, keeping sentry through a gap in the banister, snuffles agitatedly when Chris nudges at the toy with his foot so he relents and heads to the kitchen.

The first thing he sees there is a bottle of whiskey glinting proudly in a sunbeam and Chris debates whether to pour himself a finger or two. True, he has his own bottle waiting for him as soon as he can get out to the sheep farm, but this whiskey is here right now and stolen liquor always tastes better. The crucial variable is whether Elena will notice and how pissed she will be if she does. He tilts the bottle to read the message scrawled on the label:

_Young Miss— For b-day receive 1 bottle booze (v. fine quality) to be paid for w/ 60 min. of pleasant attitude, CONSECUTIVE. —Yrs Trly, Uncle X._

Chris lets out a low whistle, wondering what Elena had done since last year to warrant the increase in terms. It used to be that she only had to be nice for half an hour.

Considering this new information, Chris concludes that he'll get walloped if he drinks any of the whiskey and consoles himself by stealing a beer from the fridge. As an afterthought, he ferrets out a slice of deli meat and goes back into the foyer.

The Corgi hunkers down, catching Chris with its tremulous stare.

"It's called networking," Chris tells it, ripping the slice of meat in half and passing it slowly through the gap in the railings. He holds it steady just beyond the range of the cone, frowning when the Corgi doesn't move. "You don't keep kosher, do you?" he asks. The ham dangles, as pink and fluttery as the tongue flicking out over sharp white teeth. The Corgi starts to drool so no, it probably does not keep kosher. "Go on, take it," Chris croons. "I want to do something nice for you, and all I need is a little information in return."

This sounds like a fair trade, apparently, because the Corgi wiggles forward just enough to take the ham with a delicate lick that leaves a film of slobber on his fingertips.

"Good dog," Chris says in approval. "So, tell me. Has your mistress been swearing a lot, lately?" he asks, and holds out the remaining ham.

The Corgi scoots up overeagerly, crackling its cone against the banisters and shrinking back again with a startled huff.

Chris clucks sympathetically and moves the ham into reach. "I'd really like to know if there are certain themes to her rants. Does she mention volcanoes, for example?" He sneaks in a nose-skritch while the Corgi is occupied with slurping up the taste of ham from his skin. "What about Nausicaan pirates, does that sound familiar?" Either is likely. The run-in with the pirates probably isn't classified, but the volcano incident has a dramatic flair which the _Gazette_ is typically helpless to resist.

Of course, the worse case scenario is that the _Gazette_ ran stories on both.

The Corgi sets his paws neatly beneath the cone edge, wagging his tail stub in a deliberate, hopeful rhythm.

"I'm out of ham," Chris says, showing his empty palm. "And I'm guessing you don't have any relevant information."

The Corgi does not. It lowers its head apologetically.

Chris lifts his beer for a long swallow and nearly chokes on it when the Corgi perks up, stepping forward boldly to lick at the label. The cone crackles again so it settles back, flicking serial glances between the bottle and his face.

"You were holding out for the good stuff, huh?" Chris says. He considers pouring some into the palm of his hand to cement the Corgi as an ally, but instead slips his hand between the banisters to deliver a purposeful chin rub. "Sorry, friend, no beer for you until I know what kind of medication you're on. Anyway," he says, turning on his heel and tossing his words back over his shoulder. "You didn't give me what I wanted."

As he crosses the threshold into the kitchen, the air behind him shivers with a sudden loud whine. He raises the beer in silent acknowledgment and keeps going. The back door in the kitchen leads right to the paddock, after all; it's time to go see his horse.


End file.
